Animal crematorium, birth control facilities for dogs on cards in Chennai

CHENNAI: The city corporation is set to open a ‘small animal’ crematorium in Kannamapettai as part of its larger plan to upgrade its Animal Birth Control (ABC) centres. With an incinerator, the modern crematorium will give stray dogs that die due to various reasons across the city a decent cremation and also cater to the pet owners who want to take the ashes of their pets back home. 

Kannamapettai already has a burial ground for pets. This is part of the civic body’s larger plan to upgrade the ABC centres. Administrative sanction for the project has already come through and the city corporation has hired a consultant to design the project in coordination with experts and veterinarians, said corporation officials. It is to be carried out at a cost of `9.2 crores along with an operational cost of Rs 4.9 crores a year.

“The aim is to handle mass animal birth control surgeries in a humane way. The programme is designed in such a way that it involves as little touching the dogs as possible. Humane trapping mechanisms are also a part of the project,” said a corporation official.

According to initial discussions, once the centres have been upgraded, the corporation will also focus on decentralising the ABC activities across the city instead of bringing dogs to one of the only three centres that are currently in operation.

The civic body, at present, has three ABC centres at Lloyds road, Kannamapet and Basin Bridge road. The plan is to demolish the Lloyds road centre since it was found to be in a bad shape and construct new G+1 buildings at its place. At the Kannamapet and Basin bridge centres, in addition to revamping the existing structures, an additional G+1 building is to come up.

Officials said that the project has been welcomed by activists and animal lovers who had been requesting an upgrade of the ABC centres. The project is expected to streamline the birth control operations by the city corporation that has received flak from various quarters in the past.

In 2019, Advocate-Commissioner A Yogeshwaran, during a surprise-inspection, found that the Lloyds colony ABC did not have a registry of dog deaths on the premises. Several videos have cropped up in the past claiming mistreatment of animals at the Pulianthope ABC. According to official estimates, there are around 80,000 stray dogs and unofficially around three lakh stray dogs, across the city.